San Francisco – San Francisco Giants pitcher Logan Webb’s dominance in today’s 11-4 win over the San Diego Padres clinched the Giants their first National League West crown since 2012. It’s been an unbelievable year, with San Francisco reaching a franchise best 107 wins marked another place in the history books.
“Today on the biggest stage I think he set the tone in the first inning of work, striking out the side and looking like he was going to be able to pitch deep into the game and that’s exactly what we needed today,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said after the game. “I think we as a group needed that boost of confidence coming off of yesterday’s loss that somebody was going to kind of step up and say like, ‘climb on my back and I’ll do the work,’ and Logan really did that.”
Webb took the mound for today’s contest and it was a must-win game to say the least. And he did not disappoint on either side of the plate. Webb pitched seven strong innings, allowed just four runs on six hits while striking out eight, including striking out the side in the first frame.
But that’s just half of his day, Webb helped his own cause in Sunday’s win, going 2-for-3 at the plate with a crucial first hit of the game in the third, then he smacked a Nabil Crismatt pitch to left for a two-run home run in the fifth to put San Francisco up 9-1, all but locking down the division title for the Giants.
“I was also a little pissed because I gave up four to those guys the first and last (starts against the Padres),” said Webb. “I definitely wanted to avoid something like that.
“I think the crowd just kind of took over, before the game and after every strike.”
The home run by Webb in the fifth inning was the first by a Giants pitcher this season, the first of his career, and the first since Madison Bumgarner hit one against the Colorado Rockies back in September of 2019. Even more, Webb’s home run was his first since his senior year at Rocklin High School in 2014.
“I think he’s known for a while there was a matter of time before he was going to hit one,” Buster Posey said. “Just to give us a little bit more separation there, a little bit more separation there was important.”
Webb’s only jam of the day came in the fifth frame where he retired 12 of the first 13 Padres he faced, he allowed a one-out double to Adam Frazier, then hit Jake Marisnick on the following at-bat. Webb worked out of it by getting catcher Webster Rivas to fly out to right, followed by striking out Tommy Pham swinging.
San Francisco’s lineup took two innings to get warmed up, but once they got going they found their rhythm very quickly. Webb’s one-out single in the third got things started then Posey got the scoring underway with an RBI single, driving in Webb and Wilmer Flores to open the scoring. San Diego’s Manny Machado pulled the Padres within one an inning later on a sacrifice fly to left to score Trent Grisham who doubled off of Webb to leadoff the inning.
Then the onslaught started in the bottom half. After Kris Bryant, Mike Yastrzemski and Webb all walked to open the inning, Tommy La Stella singled to left to drive in Bryant to give the Giants a 3-1 lead. Flores then singled to left, scoring both Webb and Yastrzemski, extending the lead to 5-1. Not to be outdone, LaMonte Wade Jr hit a sacrifice fly to left to score La Stella, and Posey hit an RBI single to score Flores.
Posey’s second hit of the game marked the 1,500th of his career.
“It’s a nice mark,” said Posey. “It’s a nice round number. I think being able to drive in some runs there with those last few hits probably means more.”
With the division in hand and now a few days to rest, the Giants now wait and see who they’ll play in the National League Division Series set to start Friday at Oracle Park. The Giants will take on the winner of Wednesday night’s National League Wild Card game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals.
Photo by Giants/Twitter
